Garhwal Post Bureau
Dehradun, 6 Nov: Reacting to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s remarks against his government announcing Friday as a holiday, senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister Harish Rawat challenged him to provide evidence for his allegations. It may be recalled that in his address today, Shah had accused the then Harish Rawat Government of coming up with a proposal for a holiday on Friday for offering namaz, and had claimed that corruption had flourished during that period.
Taking to social media, Rawat said that Shah had referred to him in his address and made certain ‘false claims’. He said he is calling them lies not only because they lack any factual basis, but also because even those listening to Shah’s address did not applaud or support the allegations.
Rawat said the response made it clear that members of Shah’s own party also believed that what he was saying was untrue, and that this is the impression among the public as well. He added that the people present at the venue had not endorsed Shah’s claims by clapping.
Rawat claimed that ministers in the current state government are working with objectives other than social service and cited the case of a minister’s husband who had reportedly stated that he possessed assets worth Rs 210 crores.
Rawat alleged that the minister’s husband had said that when the minister came to him, she had only a sari and slippers, and nothing else. He said the matter of assets exceeding known income had reached the High Court, which had ordered a CBI probe, but the state government was not granting permission for the investigation.
The Congress leader said that, if he begins discussing scams, then a scam would surface in every office of the BJP. He directly challenged Amit Shah, the Home Minister of India, to prove even one of the alleged scams and provide evidence. Rawat said Shah should also furnish proof of the alleged Friday namaz holiday, failing which he would quit politics and apologise to the people of the state and the country.
Rawat further alleged that Shah and his party had been involved in sting operations. He claimed that Kailash Vijayvargiya, currently a minister in Madhya Pradesh, had been entrusted with this work, and that all such sting operations had been carried out under his supervision. He alleged that Shah and his government relied on “sting operators”.
He said that perhaps welfare policies are not sufficient for the BJP to run its system, which was why it took recourse to sting operations.
